Review: Patron XO Cafe Dark Cocoa Liqueur
Patron already makes a coffee-flavored liqueur, XO Cafe, and now it extends that line with XO Cafe Dark Cocoa, which adds Mexican Criollo chocolate to the mix of Patron silver and coffee flavors. All the components are there. Chocolate with a touch of cinnamon hits you first on the nose. Take a sip and that…
Review: Newcastle Founders’ Ale
Newcastle has been on a tear lately with limited edition releases. A whopping four more are on the way for 2012. Here’s the first: Newcastle Founders’ Ale. This English-style ale is light in body, in keeping with the Newcastle house style. Designed for Spring drinking (on sale through April), it is lightly sweet and lightly…
Review: Buffalo Trace Distillery Single Oak Project Bourbon Round Four
Once more into the breach? We’re a quarter of the way into the Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project, with the fourth round of 12 Bourbons released this month, bringing the total to 48 out of 192. Need previous coverage or a baseline of what this experimental series is all about? Find it here: Round One…
Review: Avery IPA
Avery alludes to the traditional objective of IPAs (English breweries used to load their beers with hops to help preserve it during the long journey to India) with the rustic, global label on this brew, and one gets the idea that this could probably endure the journey across a few oceans. Thankfully, this Colorado brewery…
Review: C by Courvoisier Cognac
All brands must expand, and Courvoisier has been on a tear lately. First Courvoisier Rose, now C by Courvoisier. Unlike the Rose, C is a full Cognac, blended from spirits produced from grapes from 50 winegrowers in the Fin Bois Cru, a somewhat lesser Cognac region surrounding Grand Champagne and Petite Champagne. That’s understandable: There…
Review: Benromach Origins, Batch #1 Golden Promise 1999
We’re doing things a little backwards here. We’ve already reviewed Benromach’s second Origins series experimental Scotch whisky, and we’re backtracking to get to its first, Golden Promise 1999. What is Golden Promise? A special type of barley developed in 1965, and one of the most popular in Scotch whiskeys. The Golden Promise used in this…
Review: Wines of Pali, 2010 Vintage
Pali operates in Lompoc but bottles single vineyard wines — primary Pinot — from all over the west coast. Recently it launched a cuvee program to bring more affordable, region-specific wines to the masses in higher volumes than it can do with its single vineyard wines. We tasted three of the newly released 2010 bottlings.…
Review: Liber & Co. Spiced Tonic Syrup
Austin-based Liber & Company trucks in a pretty narrow world: Artisinal, spiced tonic syrup. Liber & Co. sent us samples of their new product and it’s certainly nothing like your bottle of Schweppes. A ruddy orange, and indeed a tonic syrup, not a tonic “water.” Made with crushed herbs, spices, and cinchona bark, it is…
